My Great Grandpa Gepford became convinced that the use of tobacco was an unclean, unhealthy, and unholy practice back in the days when farmers plowed their fields behind a team of mules and many doctors still prescribed smoking as a cure for lung ailments.

He had been attending some evangelistic meetings at his wife’s Seventh-day Adventist Church when he came under the strong conviction he should abandon his long-standing habit of chewing tobacco. On the basis of the Bible teaching that our bodies are the temple of God’s Spirit, and our care for them is a way of honoring our Maker–along with the more specific visions of New England’s mystic and health reformer Ellen White concerning the slow acting and cancerous poisons of tobacco, Great Grandpa decided he and his ever-present plug of tobacco must part company.

There was only one problem. He had chewed since he was a boy. He was thoroughly addicted to nicotine.

One morning when he went out to plow his corn field, Great Grandpa decided this would be the day he would quit chewing forever. As he began to turn the furrows, he paused the mules, took out his tobacco kit out of his overalls pocket, cut off a final fragrant plug, and stuck it in his cheek. Then he tossed the kit with its tobacco down into the open furrow behind him and began plowing the perimeter of the field. By the time he got to the other side, his plug of tobacco had lost its punch. He hankered greatly for another. As he neared the place he had thrown his kit into the furrow, he called to his “Whoah!” to the mules. He pulled them up short, then he stepped around, picked his tobacco kit from the furrow, and cut himself another chew. He tossed the tobacco kit in the furrow behind his team a second time. He plowed on around the big cornfield, chewing, spitting, and chiding himself for his weakness.

But by the time he had plowed around the corn field again, his long-indulged cravings again proved overpowering. “Whoah!” he commanded the mules, and went to cut himself a second plug. Again, he threw the tobacco kit into the open furrow behind him, thoroughly digusted and angry with himself, He chewed and spat all the way around that third circuit of the field. But this time, he prayed, too. He prayed harder than he’d ever prayed for anything in his life. He knew he needed help and if he didn’t get it, his old habit would have him forever. As he neared the place where his tobacco kit lay in the open furrow for the third time, he felt it clawing at him stronger than ever before. But this time, instead of crying “Whoah!” and pulling the mules to a halt, Great Granpa shouted, “Giddy up!” He gave a slap of the reins and those strong mules plowed Grandpa’s nicotine habit under his cornfield forever.

My Great Grandfather never touched tobacco in any form again as long as he lived. Nor did any of his many descendants down to the fifth generation. I am the fourth generation from his line. I never smoked so much as a puff, nor took so much as a snuff, nor felt that chewing a wad of weed was anything except a disgusting, degrading, health-destroying habit. Escaping this All-American addiction is of no credit to me. The fact is, I never even wanted to try the stuff. I inherited my anti-tobacco bias and habits from my Adventist ancestors, who stretch back four generations to a poor dirt farmer being jerked along behind a mule-drawn plow.

My Great Grandpa won a victory over addiction for all of us when he kicked the habit himself.